University of Stirling


The University of Stirling is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by a royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built within the walled Airthrey Castle estate.
The university campus is approximately in size, incorporating the Stirling University Innovation Park and the Dementia Centre. The campus is located in the foothills of the Ochil Hills. In 2002, the University of Stirling and the landscape of the Airthrey Estate was designated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites as one of the UK's top 20 heritage sites of the 20th century.
As of 2022, the university has 14,000 part-time and full-time students. Stirling has international degree programme partnerships in China with Hebei Normal University, Singapore with Singapore Institute of Management, and Oman. The university offers a MSc in Human Rights & Diplomacy, which is the only Human Rights and Diplomacy programme in the world taught in partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.

History

Stirling was the first new university to be established in Scotland for nearly 400 years. The original site of the campus was selected from shortlisted competing sites, which include Falkirk, Perth and Inverness. The author of the Robbins Review, which recommended an expansion of the number of universities in the UK during the 1960s, Lord Robbins, was appointed as the university's first chancellor in 1968. In 1967 a house for the university principal Tom Cottrell was completed, designed by architects Morris and Steedman. It was listed as category A in 2009.
The Pathfoot Building, which represented the first phase of development on the campus, was completed in 1968 and originally housed lecture theatres, offices and classrooms in addition to the 'crush hall' where the university displayed its emerging collection of contemporary Scottish art. The building was extended in 1979 to include a Tropical Aquarium and again in 1987 to include a Virology Unit associated with the university's Institute of Aquaculture. In 1993, the Pathfoot Building was selected by the international conservation organisation DoCoMoMo as one of sixty key Scottish monuments of the post-war era. It was also voted as one of Prospect's 100 best modern Scottish buildings. In 1970, development began on what was subsequently named the Cottrell Building, in memory of the university's first principal Cottrell. It comprises two parallel buildings with cross link corridors and interspersed courtyard gardens. The building today houses most of the university administration, lecture theatres, departmental offices, classrooms and computer laboratories. The University Library, Atrium and MacRobert Centre are housed in an adjoining building, the Andrew Miller Building, which was completed in 1971.
On 13 October 1972, during a visit to the new campus by HM The Queen, she was subjected to a rowdy reception by booing students, widely reported in the media. The students were protesting about the lack of social spaces in what was at the time a relatively newly built university. On the 14 October 1972 the University Court ordered an immediate investigation into the students’ behaviour. Twenty-four students allegedly involved were charged for the disruption. Jackie McKie was cleared on 15 December 1972. On February 12 1973 students boycotted the ensuing disciplinary trials. When Linda Quinn, the President of the Council of Students’ Association, appealed against her conviction in early March 1973, students organised a mass demonstration to mark the event. Eventually all charges were dropped. Linda Quinn completed her studies at Stirling. There were no further Royal visits until 2011, when Prince Edward formally opened the refurbished library.
A department of Business studies was set up in 1982. The Institute of Aquaculture, a research institute specialising in fish farming and genetics, opened the same year. In 1983 it sold 300 acres of land to Wang Laboratories. The R.G. Bomont Building, which houses the Faculty of Social Science, was completed in 1998. The Iris Murdoch building was opened in 2002 to house The Dementia Services Development Centre, and the Colin Bell Building was completed in 2003.

Campus

The university campus is set within of grounds beneath the Ochil Hills, from the centre of Stirling, close to the town of Bridge of Allan. It is regularly described as one of the most beautiful campuses in the world and was ranked 1st in the UK for its campus environment in the International Student Barometer 2016. It is situated on the site of the historic Airthrey estate which includes the Robert Adam-designed 18th-century Airthrey Castle and includes the Hermitage woods, Airthrey Loch, Airthrey Golf Course. The Andrew Miller Building incorporates an Atrium, which contains several retail and food outlets including a bookstore, bank and general store. This building links the Library and Robbins' Centre Students' Union and has connecting bridges to the Cottrell Building, on-campus student residences and the MacRobert Arts Centre. The Library holds over 500,000 volumes and over 9,000 journals. Home to the archives of both the novelist Patrick McGrath and filmmaker Norman McLaren, the Library reopened in August 2010 after a major refurbishment programme. MacRobert Arts Centre is a small theatre and cinema complex open to members of the university community and the general public. The university houses a considerable fine art collection in the Pathfoot Building, comprising over 300 works including paintings, tapestries and sculpture.
The university previously maintained campuses in Inverness and Stornoway, which specialised in Nursing and Midwifery. The Highland site was on the outskirts of Inverness within the grounds of Raigmore Hospital. The Western Isles campus was located in Stornoway and the teaching accommodation was part of the Western Isles Hospital. In 2016, it was announced that the University of Stirling would be transferring delivery of its programmes on these campuses to the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Accommodation

The University of Stirling student accommodation can cater for almost 3,000 students in over 20 properties located on and off campus. Most accommodation is in university halls and located on campus. There are town houses at Alexander Court for families and groups of students. Of the 2,000 rooms located on-campus, 800 were built since 2013 as part of a £40m investment programme in student accommodation which was completed in September 2015.
Halls of Residence located on campus include:
  • Andrew Stewart Hall
  • Willow Court Flats & Studios
  • Beech Court Flats & Studios
  • Juniper Court Flats & Studios
  • Fraser of Allander House
  • H H Donnelly House
  • Muirhead House
  • Polwarth House
  • Pendreich Way
  • Spittal Hill
Residential buildings located off-campus, within Stirling city centre, include Union Street, Bayne Street, Lyon Crescent, John Forty's Court and Alangrange.

Sport facilities

Stirling was designated as Scotland's University for Sporting Excellence by the Scottish Government in 2008. Scholarships are available in five core sports: football, golf, swimming, tennis and triathlon, which allow student athletes to prepare for international competition.
The university has a comprehensive range of sports facilities including a 9-hole Airthrey Golf Course and a 50-metre swimming pool completed in 2001 as part of the National Swimming Academy – a partnership between the university, Scottish Swimming and British Swimming. The sports centre also holds the Gannochy National Tennis Centre, badminton and squash courts, a fitness centre, strength and conditioning centre, sports halls and all-weather playing fields available for students, university staff and the public. The campus is the headquarters for a number of sports agencies including the sportscotland institute of sport, Commonwealth Games Scotland, Scottish Swimming and triathlonscotland.
At Rio 2016, a number of students and alumni from the university competed for Great Britain. Swimmers included Duncan Scott and Robbie Renwick, who both earned silver medals, as well as Commonwealth gold medalist Ross Murdoch.
Top seed tennis player Andy Murray and his brother Jamie Murray trained on the university courts when they were young. Gordon Reid, wheelchair Olympic gold medalist in 2016, was a tennis scholar at the university. The university men's and women's golf teams are consistently ranked among the best in Europe.
The university's most senior football teams compete in the main Scottish league pyramid; the men's team in the regional fifth tier, and the women's team in the second tier. Lower teams compete in the BUCS Football Leagues. In January 2023, the men's football team made history by reaching the 4th round of the Scottish Cup. Losing 1-0 away to Dundee United.
In 2018, the university announced a £20 million transformation of its sports facilities. The project included construction of a new sports centre, which opened in November 2020. The university's new sports centre includes a fitness suite with more than 100 stations, wireless connectivity, three Outrace functional rigs across the new spaces, and new public strength and conditioning area. The University of Stirling is one of the first universities in the UK to install Technogym's new Excite Live range of equipment.

International degree partnerships

The university has international degree programme partnerships in Singapore, Oman and Vietnam, with the established partnership with British University Vietnam in 2024.

Ras al-Khaimah

In 2018, the university opened a branch in Ras al-Khaimah which is shared by four other satellite campuses in United Arab Emirates. The campus is not accredited by the local Ministry of Education.

Organisation and governance

In August 2016, the university reorganised into four faculties, the Stirling Management School and the Stirling Graduate School.
  • Faculty of Social Sciences
  • *Applied Social Sciences
  • *Education
  • Faculty of Arts and Humanities
  • *Communications, Media and Culture
  • *History and Politics
  • *Law and Philosophy
  • *Literature and Languages
  • *London Academy of Diplomacy
  • Stirling Management School
  • *Accounting & Finance
  • *Economics
  • *Management, Work and Organisation
  • *Marketing and Retail
  • *Centre for Advanced Management Education
  • *Centre for Graduate Research in Management
  • Faculty of Natural Sciences
  • *Aquaculture
  • *Biological and Environmental Sciences
  • *Computing Science and Mathematics
  • *Psychology
  • Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport
  • *Sport
  • *Health Sciences